A little back patting

Today I was thinking about what I've done during the past three months since I've been out of the hospital. It's not a long list, and it's not in order of importance or date, but it means something to me, and I thought I'd share it with you. [I know that's totally a run-on sentence.]

• I found a psychiatrist and a psychologist. They make up my international mental health team.
• I renewed my commitment to Sam in front of our families and closest friends. It was awesome.
  
• I presented some of my work before an audience of my colleagues, and I got thoughtful questions that showed they were listening. I was (this part is important) able to answer them. So there.
• I made out the checks for my hospital stay, the ambulance, and another mental health bill. Get this: there's a Vanderbilt Medical Group and a Vanderbilt Medical Hospital, and they both billed us. And riding in an ambulance is not nearly as cool as one might think but it's also less expensive.
• I applied for and got student loans, a labyrinthine process.
• I gained a little weight, but it's not meds weight, so I'll be able to slowly take it off.
• I got a new tattoo. 
• I started working on the diss again. Although I sometimes panic about my topic and its scope, it's good to be seriously working again. It's especially good to be working in a healthy way, without mania.

So that's my list. I don't feel that productive, but looking at the things I've done makes me realize that my therapist is right: I am getting stronger.

Awkward

I'm so glad you all came to our renewal celebration. I'm sincerely grateful to have you as friends, and I love you all. Sometimes I feel awkward in expressing my emotions, but I'm working on that. It's a lot easier to use allusion as expression. I'm great at showing love through the words in other's works. 

So, a short poem by Thomas Lux. This one's for you, Sam:

I Love You, Sweatheart

A man risked his life to write the words.

A man hung upside down (an idiot friend

holding his legs?) with spray paint

to write the words on a girder fifty feet above

a highway. And his beloved,

the next morning driving to work. . . ?

His words are not (meant to be) so unique.

Does she recognize his handwriting?

Did he hint to her at her doorstep the night before

of "something special, darling, tomorrow"?

And did he call her at work

expecting her to faint with delight

at his celebration of her, his passion, his risk?

She will know I love her now,

the world will know my love for her!

A man risked his life to write the world.

Love is like this at the bone, we hope, love

is like this, Sweatheart, all sore and dumb

and dangerous, ignited, blessed—always,

regardless, no exceptions,

always in blazing matters like these: blessed.

 

Menu

I've been working on a loose menu for Saturday--hard to believe it's almost here--and we're having fish and pork, with a couple of dessert-type things that I'm getting at Marché. I know I've talked to some of you about bringing side dishes, and it would be great, fantastic, really, to get some contributions. We're going with a contemporary American style, so nothing especially fancy. Here's a list that might inspire you:

• Cheese and crackers, dip and crudités, or some other kind of appetizer thing
• Artichokes
• Asparagus
• Pasta for a potential pasta course
• Potatoes or rice
• Salad
• Spinach

These are just a few seasonal ideas I've hard, but I'm in no way committed to them. We're having 22 people, and it's my hope that we'll experience what I'm calling "the pot-luck phenomenon," in which people bring the amount they want to and we end up having more than enough.

 

Just let me know in the comments section here what you'd like to bring (if you're planning to bring something, which don't feel pressured to do so at all), and it'll be like a conversation instead of a blind groping for a plan. Finally, it would not be a tragedy to have more than one of any dish. 

Thank you, our friends.

Addendum: Many of you are already playing another role or bringing something else--please don't think of this plea as yet another thing you feel you should do. 

&

This week has been a little chaotic. So I have a few updates of varying interest:

• Dave is probably gone for good. Janer seems much happier--relaxed, affectionate, and less likely to attack the dog.
• I've called several of you in a panic recently. The calling is a good thing for me because it means I'm leaning a little on friends during a rough patch. Don't expect it to stop any time soon.
• I'm not sleeping at night and am having some racing and divided thoughts. Like having an intense conversation while contemplating a movie I watched recently and trying to figure out how one would go about replicating the table and chairs. It's not that I'm distracted, particularly, from conversations: I can contribute meaningfully and pay attention to the line of conversation. It's just that my mind seems to need more input to function adequately.
• My diagnosis has officially changed, by which I mean that the doctor I'm currently seeing as my primary doctor (not someone who has seen me a few times in the hospital) has changed my diagnosis to bipolar disorder I. I'm actually a little relieved by this change because 1) it's more in line with what I think the diagnosis should be; 2) in my opinion, it's not as bleak as bipolar II; and 3) I have a better sense of why my personal course of action should be. I've been counting deep breathes while visualizing each number: its size, color, and font type. Ones are small and yellow; fours are big, blue, and sans serif. The exercise actually is calming when I make myself focus only on the numbers. 
• Sam and I are struggling right now. We're at the beginning of a difficult, probably long process, but I'm trying to work, with Sam, on not allowing every argument to lead to catastrophe. Smaller, sober arguments are better than the loud, passionate, drunk arguments we often have.
  
• I still need to ask you, my friends, to help me with reality checks, an infelicitous phrase but I can't think of a better way to put it. To say it longer, though, I have trouble with distinguishing between my true feelings and my disordered feelings. It's like the difference between temperature and climate. If I am to be vigilant about my mood disorder, I have to know what's healthy first. I'm working on it in therapy, but you can do much to help me by letting me know what seems unreal or out of control.

That's the sum of it today. Sorry for the fragmented nature of the post, but there's a lot happening that must be expressed.

Last Friday

I really tied one on with a great big bow, and I'm glad I was with Sam because I hate to think what might have happened to me if I were alone. It's kind of scary to get that drunk. So, on that note (and to post a poem Sam reminded me of this morning), here's a golden oldie by A.E. Housman, "'Terrence, This Is Stupid Stuff'" (1896). It's long but worth it:

"Terrence, this is stupid stuff:

You eat your victuals fast enough; 

There can't be much amiss, 'tis clear,

To see the rate you drink you beer.

But oh, good Lord, the verse you make,

It gives a chap the belly-ache.

The cow, the old cow, she is dead;

It sleeps well, the horned head:

We poor lads, 'tis our turn  now

To hear such tunes as killed the cow.

Pretty friendship 'tis to rhyme

Your friends to death before their time

Moping melancholy man:

Come, pipe a tune to dance to, lad."

Why, if 'tis dancing you would  be,

There's brisker pipes than poetry.

Say, for what were hop-yards meant,

Or why was Burton built on Trent?

Oh many a peer of England brews

Livelier liquid than the Muse,

And malt does more than Milton can

To justify God's ways to man.

Ale, man, ale's the stuff to drink

For fellows whom it hurts to think:

Look into the pewter pot

To see the world as the world's not.

And faith, 'tis pleasure till 'tis past:

The mischief is that 'twill not last.

Oh I have been to Ludlow fair

And left my necktie God knows where,

And carried half way home, or near,

Pints and quarts of Ludlow beer:

Then the world seemed none so bad,

And I myself a sterling lad;

And down in lovely muck I've lain,

Happy till I woke again.

Then I saw the morning sky:

Heighho, the tale was all a lie;

The world, it was the old world yet,

I was I, my things were wet,

And nothing now remained to do

But begin the game anew. 

Therefore, since the world has still

Much good, but much less good than ill,

And while the sun and moon endure

Luck's a chance, but trouble's sure,

I'd face it like a wise man would,

And train for ill and not for good.

'Tis true, the stuff I bring for sale

Is not so brisk a brew as ale:

Out of a stem that scored the hand

I wrung it in a weary land.

But take it: if the smack is sour,

The better for the embittered hour;

It should do good in heart and head

When your soul is in my soul's stead;

And I will friend you, if I may,

In the dark and cloudy day.

There was a king reigned in the East:

There, when kings will sit down to feast,

They get their fill before they think

With poisoned meat and poisoned drink.

He gathered all the springs to birth

From the many-venomed earth;

First a little, thence to more,

He sampled all her killing store;

And easy, smiling, seasoned sound,

Sate the king when healths went round.

They put arsenic in his meat

And stared aghast to watch him eat;

They put strychnine in his up 

And shook to see him drink it up:

Them it was their poison hurt.

---I tell the tale that I heard told.

Mithridates, he died old.

Decade

A year ago today, I kissed you, Sam. I don't know if you heard it in my voice, but when you put your hand on the doorknob, I panicked. "Wait! We need to talk." I just said the first thing that I could think of so that you wouldn't walk out of that room.

It was the best decision I'd ever made. 

You came back. We talked. "Let's try this," I said and put my lips on yours. That was the best decision I'd ever made. 

Since then, we've both made good and poor decisions (an understatement, I know), but we've had our decade to make them, and I'm grateful. I may not express it well, but you are the love of my life, and you always will be. My heart still leaps up. You still make my knees weak. We still generate the heat of a trillion suns. I hope for other decades, each expanding and contracting in my memory like this one has.

A moment: You catch the key I throw from the balcony. Ten million moments: I watch you laugh, your beautiful crinkles at the corners of your eyes. A moment: I say "my love" to you the first time, still afraid to say "I love you." Ten billion moments: you take my breath as easily as you take my hand.

I love you, Sam. A million trillion love units.

Kiss me, I'm shitfaced

I become more and more annoyed each year at St. Pat's day celebrations. Ooh, Irish for a day--what a great reason to get drunk and act like an asshat. After all, that's what being Irish is all about. People are planting bombs in Castlewellan, while the idiots here drink car bombs. 

Okay, that's not really why I'm irked. I could list all of the reasons why it doesn't make sense (e.g., these protestants should be wearing orange) or why it's offensive, but when it comes right down to it, I just resent these people drinking it up yesterday at the Edge. They remind me of those kids in grade school who used to call me "p'tato-head." 

Fiscal Discipline

I don't have any.

Disappointment

So Katherine disappointed me. I'm going to call her, and we'll talk about her issues with mental illness and suicide. That's fine. It's just not what I want in a friend. 

I'm trying very hard to be open to other people and their friendship, but I'm such a bad judge of others. I trust too much or too little, and I don't know which is happening until it's too late. 

Aside from Katherine's and my conversation, the party was fun. I enjoyed it, and I think my guests enjoyed themselves. 

Anniverse

Last March, I started writing this blog. I was beginning to feel better (I thought), and I had some stuff to say. For example, I noted that my blood serum level for lithium was on the low end of therapeutic but that Chris said it was fine when combined with lamictal. How wrong was that!

The onset of mania often escapes notice, masquerading as just feeling better. Looking back, I see that last April marked the peak of blog-writing, coming in at 21 posts. I made a little graph to test a hypothesis: did the number of blog posts for each month indicate vacillating moods? The results are in. Last April (21), September (14), and this February (10) look like spikes in an otherwise downward trend. I should say, however, that May's posts were fewer than April's, but they were prolix. It's an illustration of how mood works in me. More posts mean more to say, but fewer posts can still mean pressured speech and a desire to get out all of the stuff I have to say, all at once.

I don't know what counts as the onset of mania and what just counts as feeling better. I don't know how to measure how I feel, even, as I wrote some posts that seemed lighter in tone because I was hiding my misery so that no one stopped me from fulfilling my plans. When mood is the question, nothing becomes an answer.